April

I can't believe it's already April. It doesn't seem possible that we've been here over a month already. It still feels like we're getting settled (and in many ways, we still are). I wish I could say it's all been smooth sailing, but life here is tough, even for a family of "obrunis" (white people) living in a nice house with a steady income and a fair amount of help.

Dusty has made lots of promising contacts for his research, including the vice chancellor of the university here. He's an MSU alum and friend of Dusty's Twi tutor back in the States. When Dusty told him he was an MSU graduate student, he was eager to do anything he could to help out a fellow Spartan! He's also met with several NGO and government contacts in the forestry industry. We're fortunate to be in Kumasi, which is literally at the heart of Ghana's timber industry. He's shifting his focus slightly from the timber itself to the ways in which farmers are helping to rehabilitate land that has been degraded by excess logging, and he has identified a couple potential field sites that are reasonably close (less than an hour's drive) to the house. I imagine his success thus far has a lot to do with his capable research assistant...

Elliot is eating his weight in papaya (baw-baw) and banana (baladle) and attracting attention wherever he goes. He still loves doggies, and one of his favorite things to do when we're stuck inside is to look at pictures of his buddies Merlyn and Hemingway back home. Friends of ours keep trying to convince us to take on one of their puppies while we're here, but we're not there yet. On Thursday, we got hooked up with a weekly expat playgroup. Between the backyard pool (even though he never actually made it in), the swingset and the slide, he was in heaven. Naturally, he could not have cared less about playing with the other kids (or giving mom the chance to visit with the other moms), but it was still great to get out and watch him having such a good time. We'll be back this week for sure!

We're all getting excited for the arrival of my mom and brothers in a couple weeks. It will be great to have company - and we're looking forward to taking them around and showing them the sights. It's hard to believe they'll be here so soon!

It rained on and off all afternoon today, culminating in a big storm that hit just before dinner and cooled everything off. Ahhh, so refreshing after some of the hot days we've had!

Stormy skies

As March comes to a close and folks back home are wondering when they'll have shoveled their last shovelfuls of snow, here in Ghana, we are eagerly awaiting the end of the hot stretch and the start of the rains. Unlike the northern part of the country, where it's either the dry season or the rainy season without much in between, here in Kumasi, there is a little more of a transition period. So it storms one night and then we go without rain for a few days before it storms again. The storms we've experienced so far have been wild! So far, we have not been caught out in one yet, though we came close the other day. We set out to run some errands and Elliot fell asleep in his car seat, so we decided to drive around and do some exploring. We got a ways off the main road in a neighborhood south of town when we looked back towards the city to see heavy, black clouds closing in. We took off for home and made it back with minutes to spare before the skies opened up on us. I think we were all happier to be watching the storm from the front porch than through the car windows!! Here are some pictures. As you'll see, the camera makes it almost look more like a blizzard than a rainstorm!

Go Green! Go White!

The Kumasi Chapter of the Spartan Fan Club is ready for today's NCAA tournament game against Temple. Go State!

My Nemesis

When Dusty told me our new house had a washing machine, naturally I was excited. After all, most laundry here is done by hand and having a washing machine is somewhat of a luxury. It was something I had been counting on, though, especially since Elliot would be in cloth diapers while we were here. However, like most things here, it wasn't quite what I expected.

The instructions, shown here, are clearly written... in Dutch.. and appear to explain how to wash a basic load of laundry, but do not really provide enough information for me to figure out much of anything else about the machine. The controls consist of three knobs, one with letters that appear to indicate various points in the wash cycle, one with numbers (0-4) which I have no explanation for, and a temperature guage for the machine's onboard hot water heater - its one redeeming quality.

As you can see, the washer consists of two separate chambers. Washing and rinsing are done on the left, spinning on the right. After loading the clothes into the washing/rinsing chamber, it is important to remember to latch the cover to the drum, lest your laundry end up in a soggy, soiled heap at the bottom of the machine, under the drum. Should you forget (as I often do), the drum is removable, allowing the clothes to be rescued and the whole process started again.

Once the wash cycle is complete, the laundry must be transferred to the other chamber to be spun out. The spinner is a delicate creature that requires you to precisely place your laundry in the chamber so the weight is evenly balanced and will remain so throughout the spinning process. Failure to do this will result in the spinner shuddering ominously while rocking back and forth on its axis but extracting no water. It also doesn't hold as much as the washer itself, requiring you to do either very small loads of laundry or dividing the load and spinning it out in stages.

Just the thought of doing a load of laundry is enough to put me in a foul mood. I'm not sure if its the washer itself, or if the washer has simply become the symbol for all the frustrating aspects of life here, but either way, the result is the same. When it's laundry day, look out!

The quest for parmesan cheese

It’s been said to me that you can find just about anything you want here, provided you have 1) the tenacity to keep looking for it and 2) the means to pay for it. This is not entirely true, but you would be surprised what you can find here. Since we arrived almost a month ago, I have been searching for a canister of parmesan cheese. With tomatoes in abundance (and therefore quite cheap), spaghetti is an easy, inexpensive meal that both adults and toddlers find agreeable. But it was missing something. Where was that familiar green canister? Or for you foodies, that block of fresh parmesan to grate over our pasta?

And so began my quest. I searched in grocery stores, pharmacies, even gas stations. Wherever they stocked imported food, I was there, scouring the rows of baked beans, canned mackerel and tomato paste, hoping against hope that this day would be my lucky day. Alas, it was not to be… until last Monday, when I paid a visit to Opoku Trading, the expats’ main source for all varieties of imported foods, diapers, hair products and other grocery items.

The dairy case is one of the first things you pass upon entering the store. The case itself is roughly the size of a typical American refrigerator, and the dairy items share space with chilled juices and minerals (soda). You can usually find a small selection of European cheeses alongside some rather poor-quality cheddar from the Middle East, huge blocks of mozzarella (which can be yours for the low, low price of $55), some cartons of heavy whipping cream, butter and individually wrapped slices of processed cheese spread (think generic Kraft Singles, then double the price).

On this day, I glanced in the cheese case and stopped in my tracks. What were those white canisters on the top shelf? Could it be? Was my quest finally over? Indeed, despite the fact that the packaging was entirely in Italian, it was clear this was parmesan cheese. Today was my lucky day. I finished my shopping and headed to the checkout, flush with excitement over my new find. Fortunately, I was also flush with cash.

While a store like Opoku has fixed prices (meaning they are the same for everyone and require no haggling on the part of the shopper), they are not always prominently posted. So it was not until I was back in the car examining my receipt that I realized I had paid a whopping $10 for my precious can of cheese. I think our next canister of parmesan cheese will come from the States with my mom and brothers next month.

Hack Job

A single-vehicle accident was reported Wednesday afternoon at about 3 p.m. in the courtyard of the LaDuke-Myers residence in Kumasi, Ghana. Minor injuries were reported. The driver and sole victim was treated at the scene and cited for traveling too fast for conditions.

So, I have been meaning to get at Elliot's hair for awhile now. It's gotten so long, and I can tell it makes him more uncomfortable in the oppressive heat here. But how? How, exactly, was I supposed to get my very busy little man to sit still for such an event? And how could I bring myself to cut his sweet baby blonde locks? I decided to solve the first problem by cutting his hair while he napped. The second problem? Well, mom just has to suck it up sometimes, I guess. I don't think the cut came out too badly, considering the circumstances, but perhaps he felt differently.

This afternoon, we visited the shop owned by the sister of the woman whose house we are renting to pay the rent and see her store. While we visited, Elliot was off to chase chickens and charm old ladies. It's a good thing he wasn't trying to charm girls his age, because the two we ran into were absolutely terrified by the sight of him! Good thing, because we weren't ready to let him start dating yet anyway.

We're online!!!

It's 8:30 p.m. GMT on Saturday and I am sitting on our laptop in our living room typing this message. I'm so happy I could cry!! We're finally online. Something has (so far) worked the way it is supposed to. Oh happy, happy day!

A productive week - even by American standards

Once upon a time in the not so distant past, I considered myself a reasonably productive person. I could get up at 6:30 in the morning, have breakfast, get ready and get Elliot to daycare and me to the office by (or reasonably close to) 8:30, put in a full day of work (including crossing many things off my ever-changing to do list), pick Elliot back up and be home by 5:45, have dinner by 6:30, start bath by 7:30, have Elliot asleep by 8 (in time to catch the Daily Show and Colbert reruns on Comedy Central) and enjoy a couple hours of quiet time in the evening before Dusty and I retired around 10. Here, of course, I don’t have an office to go to, which is good because the traffic in the morning in front of our house is so horrendous, I’m sure it would take me forever just to get myself to work, never mind having to drop Elliot off somewhere besides. And my to do list, while still ever-changing, mostly just expands rather than shrinking.

This week, though, was pretty good, even by American standards. It started Monday with a phone call to Michael at Internet Ghana, who works in their Accra office. Internet Ghana is the Internet provider we’ve been trying to go through to get Internet at the house, but the modems have been “finished” since November, so we’ve been out of luck to this point. But Michael has good news for us. They got a shipment of 100 modems on Friday, but they are going fast. They had already sold 30 Friday and expected them to be gone by the end of the day Monday. Michael is doubtful any will make it to Kumasi. We had to act fast. Michael could set one aside for us, but only if we paid for it in advance, which sounds simple enough, except this is not like home and you can’t (nor would you want to) just give your credit card number over the phone and be in business. So sending money required that someone (Elliot and I in this case – Dusty was out car shopping) take a taxi into town cash in hand to send the money through the bank to Accra where Michael could pick it up and pay for our modems. Despite some hiccups (nothing happens here without hiccups), we were able to send the money and get not one, but two modems – one for us and one for our friends, Lloyd and Jan, who have also been waiting to get one. Lloyd and Jan picked the modems up Friday morning and will be heading back to Kumasi over the weekend, so God willing, by Monday we will be online.

But wait, there’s more! In addition to (almost) having Internet access set up at our house, we are also now (almost) the proud owners of a vehicle. This, too, did not occur without its hassles, but car shopping is never without hassles, they’re just different here. After scouring Kumasi for a suitable vehicle in our price range, Dusty was starting to think he would have to make the 6 hour bus trip to Accra to find a car. We weren’t asking for much – reasonably low miles, everything working that was supposed to work, minimal dings and nicks to the body and a good working air conditioner. Then, out of the blue, one of the dealers he had visited arrived at our house Tuesday with a car he thought might fit the bill. It was a bit over what Dusty had planned to spend, but it was also a newer car than we had been looking at, which theoretically should mean it would have fewer potential mechanical problems. I persuaded Dusty to test drive it and he was sold. After settling on a price, the deal was struck. The next step was to get it registered, insured and all that. This would require both Dusty and Steven, the car’s previous owner to visit the registration office and file paperwork. They made plans to do this Wednesday at 10 a.m. Except Steven didn’t show. Dusty called, and he promised he was coming but had just been detained at his office. So Dusty waited some more. Steven still didn’t arrive and (in one of the more frustrating aspects of the culture here) still kept promising he was coming. Dusty finally gave him an ultimatum that if he wanted to sell the car, he needed to come. It turns out Steven really wasn’t able to get away from work to do the paperwork that day but better to say “I am coming” than to be up front and just make plans for another day. Grrr!! Fortunately, he brought the car over that evening so we could drive it until they were able to go file the paperwork to finalize the sale, which now would have to wait until Friday because Thursday was a national holiday. As I write this, it is about 11:30 on Friday morning, and they have made plans to meet at noon. We shall see… I will keep you posted.

The best-laid plans... traveling with a toddler

While our overall travel experience was reasonably smooth, as I mentioned in my earlier post, it wasn’t without its hiccups. First came the “short-staffed” security crew in Detroit. Then in my haste to get everything through the conveyor belt in a (reasonably) timely manner, I forgot to take out my carefully packed zipper bags of liquids, so our bag got pulled for a search. Yippie. Fortunately, this man was nice and even (mostly) repacked my bag for me before dashing off to tend to other nefarious passengers with baby ibuprofen and bottles of juice in their luggage.

Boarding the plane with large convertible carseat in tow, we had many helpers, including a great couple of flight attendants. I managed to get the seat installed and Elliot into it without much incident. Then the engines kicked on and we started to taxi down the runway. Elliot was not impressed. Or maybe he was a little too impressed. At any rate, he screamed the entire time, from the point when the engines fired up to the point when I took him out of his seat when we reached cruising altitude. Ugh. Then, shortly before they came around with beverages, one of the flight attendants stopped by to see how he was doing. “How old is he?” she asked. “Eighteen months,” I responded. “Oh,” she said. “Well then he doesn’t need to stay in his seat. Do you want me to take that and stow it so you have more room?” she asked. (Hmm, let me think…) “Yes, yes please!”

The rest of the flight was much better. He slept in my lap, ate cheese crackers and tried to get the little boy across the aisle from us to make faces back at him. Even the landing went smoothly. Sure, he was nervous, but it was a lot easier to take on mom’s lap than strapped in his seat.

We arrived in Amsterdam with four hours until our next flight. Great, because they have a play area where Elliot could burn off some steam, plus a nap room and lots of places to grab a quick bite to eat. Except Elliot didn’t want to play in the play area… Fortunately, they also have LOTS of moving walkways. So we spent much of our layover riding up and down the moving walkways watching the activity at the airport.

We did manage to grab a quick bite to eat in between laps and, naturally, he went to sleep about 45 minutes before we were to board our next flight. Oh well. Luckily, we were able to pass through security (yes, you have to take your carryon bags through security a second time in Amsterdam) with him peacefully sleeping in the sling. He woke up as we were waiting in line to board, though, and did not sleep again until we got to our destination for the night. Good thing mom packed lots of goodies.

We're here!

I apologize for the delayed update. We have been here just over a week now, and we still do not have the modem we need to get Internet at the house. They have been “finished” as they say here since November, and they are still waiting for more. Maybe next week, maybe mid-March… We shall see. Things move at a little different pace here, and I am still getting used to that.

First, the trip over… After a more-hectic-than-planned day of running around Lansing getting final details around, my parents whisked us to the airport in Detroit to catch our 7 p.m. overnight flight to Amsterdam. With Elliot in his sling and his carseat strapped to my wheelie carry-on, we were off! First stop, security and a very unfriendly, unhelpful TSA employee who responded to my request for a little help with undoing my bags to get through the line with a brusque “we’re pretty short staffed right now” and a lecture about how I should have prearranged with my airline to have someone there to help me, etc., etc. Thanks for nothing. Glad to see my tax dollars at work.

Fortunately, the rest of our interactions more than made up for that one. The flight crews on both planes were fantastic, and the security staff in Amsterdam were falling over themselves to help us. Then, when we arrived in Accra, we were whisked to the head of the customs line because, as the military gentlemen explained, I had a child with me and therefore should not wait in the queue (imagine that). So, as they often do, things improved greatly once we left Detroit.

We were met at the airport by Dusty (of course) and a couple from Texas (no, not George and Laura, though they were in town), Lloyd and Jan, who are missionaries working in Kumasi. We loaded all (200+ lbs) of luggage into the back of their Land Cruiser and drove to another missionary couple’s house outside Accra, where we would be staying for the night before heading back to Kumasi in the morning.

So here we are. There’s so much more to tell, and I will try to sprinkle in more information about our first week as time goes on, but I wanted to get this back up and going before too long. Hope all is well back home.